Daily Heil vs Harriet Harman

I can't see any evidence that Patricia Hewitt is 'rolling over' for the Daily Mail. The NCCL/Liberty has in the past issued an apology and admitted its mistakes for its past links with PIE, this has nothing to do with the Daily Mail. It's quite appropriate that the former general secretary of the NCCL should restate those points at the present moment, with all the media coverage the issue is receiving.

It would in fact be quite ridiculous for those concerned to pretend that was nothing wrong with the NCCL accepting PIE under its umbrella.

This reminds me of when people say "No offence, but..." [I'm about to offend you]* and "No disrespect intended, but..." [I'm about to show you a big chunk of disrespect]*.

What does she have to apologise for (in this case) other than being a target of the DM after it's catastrophic attempt to smear Ed Miliband? Or are you suggesting a politician apologise just to get the DM off its back? Should Ed have done the same? This is a smear campaign (to give it the most respectful term of which I can think at present) - be careful which smear campaigns on whose backs you'd jump to eek out an apology. Frankly, it's a disgusting campaign by a paper which blatantly sexualises children - most likely written by hypocrites who don't even believe it. That anybody with a modicum of self-respect would ally themselves to it because it might emote a response from one of his or her hate-figures is at best distasteful, at worst, loathesome.